This piece is amazing, and highlights one truth: the amount of self-afflicted human misery in Afghanistan is truly astounding.
And it raises a lot of questions. Is Afghanistan totally hopeless? Is there something wrong with the Afghans? Is it Islam? The American occupation? Something in the water? Why would anyone choose to live in such conditions, and choose to perpetuate the institutions, behaviors, and beliefs that create such an environment? What indeed is at the root of this misery?
I would argue that the key change they need is for the people to be overwhelmingly disapproving of destruction.
If you intentionally destroy someone or something, the mob should make sure your ass is grass. You can say what you want, hang out with whoever you want - but as soon as you destroy, you're toast.
Now, ideally you let the mob pitch in to hire someone to enforce this one rule, and perhaps even add some overhead to ensure that they enforce it more-or-less fairly. And so you have taxes, police, and courts. (And if you want to be more subtle about what constitutes destruction, you can make laws, but that's optional).
Afghan society must start severely punishing destructive people. Leave punishing blasphemy to Allah. Since creation is so much slower and more difficult than destruction, the net effect will be a continually improving infrastructure and society.
EDIT: Also, I would like to put up posters denouncing denouncers and see if maybe that would help.
Behaviors that are baffling to outsiders are almost certainly adaptive within the context. Tribalism and clannism seem insane to us -- but family and local ties are likely far more trustworthy than anything related to the government, law or "Afghan society".
Obviously that sets up a pretty bad loop.
I suspect that the most important economic flows in Afghanistan are foreign aid and narcotics. The proceeds of the former are largely distributed via corruption, which requires co-operation, which is facilitated by the trust within tribal networks. Those the latter would be distributed accordingly to tribal / clan structures. I suspect "the Taliban" are basically a front for an extremely well organized drug cartel.
Notice that neither of these really depend on the productivity of the population. So the powers-that-be don't need stability to keep the goods flowing. If their economy depended on large industrial plant and skilled workers then blowing stuff up and killing people would be expensive and the society wouldn't tolerate it. But who sits in office or who harvests the poppy hasn't much to do with the goods flow. And so the gains on wrestling over the spoils are higher than those on increasing the society's overall production. That means tribal co-operation "pays" a lot better than "national" co-operation. And that co-operation is far more trustworthy.
Unfortunately this traps them in a loop where 1) the weak and just are screwed and 2) they cannot possibly build a real economy.
It's just a theory, but it does seem to explain a lot. (And it's a vast oversimplification, just a very simple political / economic model to postulate how tribalism could be adaptive. Even if that model is roughly accurate, the actual operation has to be vastly more complicated.)
(As an aside: People in the United States just have no idea what a miracle this place is, how carefully its society and government was constructed, and how easily that construction could be undermined. We take a lot for granted here, but this place didn't just happen.)
> I suspect that the most important economic flows in Afghanistan are foreign aid and narcotics. The proceeds of the former are largely distributed via corruption, which requires co-operation, which is facilitated by the trust within tribal networks. Those the latter would be distributed accordingly to tribal / clan structures. I suspect "the Taliban" are basically a front for an extremely well organized drug cartel.
While the Talibans certainly rely on drug trafficking money to stay afloat nowadays, they had essentially wiped it out while they were ruling the country.
You make some good points. I'd like to mention a couple of additional things:
- Lack of institutions and the rule of law. As long as the administration, the police, the courts are easily bribed, why would you work along official channels? Your interest is better served by leveraging your clan's resources and bribing your way forward.
- Lack of a feeling of national unity. In particular, the 1996-2001 civil war in Afghanistan between the Northern Alliance and the predominantly Pashtoun, Pakistan-backed Talibans cannot have had a positive effect.
>Behaviors that are baffling to outsiders are almost certainly adaptive within the context.
Why do you believe this? It reminds me of people who think that just because something exists, it must be useful. Some things really don't serve any purpose, like nipples on men, or belly buttons, or fingerprints.
I don't think its tribalism itself that's the problem. Heck, if the tribe is big enough we call it a nation. It seems to me that it's possible to have a "good tribe" - one that defends it's borders well, and imposes something like the rule of law within it's borders. Perhaps most importantly, inculcates a culture of non-destruction - where initiating violence is frowned upon by everyone. This tribe, I believe, could thrive and grow, and prosper.
As for the economics of the thing, I think that such a tribe could do very well. Heck, if you're right about capital flows (and you probably are) such a tribe could get (covert) American aid, etc. I imagine we'd even look the other way if they wanted to grow poppies. But still, this would be a small island, and I'm not sure if there are enough people to really man the battlements and make it work.
Because it has extraordinary explanatory power in a very wide diversity of settings. It is certainly consistent with the sciences, and anthropological science in particular.
BTW -- You (on average) ate through your belly button for months 2 through 9 of your existence. Just because you aren't using it _now_ doesn't mean it never served any purpose.
Fingerprints provide roughness and grip to your fingers. Without them, you'd have a difficult time doing simple things like holding a beer bottle with your finger tips.
You're proposing an entire tribe throw off the culture that they grew up in, social bonds that could mean the difference between life and death, and just... go all John Galt over in Afghanistan?
I would offer that the more productive industrial society as a whole has become, the more unproductive parasites of multitudinous sorts have arisen. A nation dependent on foreign aid and foreign drug-dealing could only exist on the economic periphery of a more prosperous nations, right? The evolution of Mexico is instructive here.
We're lucky that in the US, the parasites at least don't have as much of an incentive to engage in violence.
I agree that this was an amazing piece. However...
>Is it Islam?
The last time Afghanistan had any internal stability was under a fundamentalist Islamic government...so probably not?
Anyway, prescribing solutions from thousands of miles away for a culture and country with which you have no experience seems a bit arrogant.
I'm not trying to pull a generic "we're all equal, let's not judge" line on you-- I'm just saying that neither of us know much about Afghanistan. And the little we do know doesn't bode well for the success for secular institutions in that country (since the puppet governments of the USSR and USA never seem to get enough popular support to become stable).
So, let's leave the solutions to someone with better experience and understanding than a forum of internet nerds.
I think this proposal is an incredibly naive way of viewing the world.
A mob by definition is unpredictable. A mob is inherently incapable of meting out justice, it can only mete out indiscriminate punishment. A mob is susceptible to the words of a demagogue, even if those words are lies. People will always try to manipulate the mob to their own advantage.
Where does the concept of having a trial come into this proposal of mob justice? How will a mob, a concept of organization that is based entirely on conformity and the emotion of anger, be able to hold a fair trial? I don't think there has ever been a case in history in which a mob of people have held a fair trial and carried out a fair punishment.
Sure, in an ideal world mobs would be capable of being fair; however, we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world where people are irrational and where the mob suppresses rational discussion by suppressing dissent.
Furthermore, there is something self-contradictory about a mob destroying people who destroy. A well-functioning system of justice can never be built on retribution and violence.
The idea of a mob pitching in to hire enforcers is even more ridiculous. Now what you have is a gang. Even if under this proposal these mobs eventually institutionalize into the "police" and "courts," there is now the problem of corruption.
30 years ago Afghanistan had a strong secular tradition. The West, CIA, armed and supported the Mujahideen tribal warlords of Afghanistan which has ushered in the tribal religious extremism. They've done the same recently in Lybia and are doing it in Syria. The West arms the Syrian rebels but the U.S. is now calling the leading Syrian opposition group, al-Nusra Front, a foreign terrorist organization. So my claim is that much of the Third World looks like basket cases because of Western imperialism.
Thanks, I know it wasn't always like this. And I don't think there's something genetically wrong with the Afghans. Heck, I've read the Kite Runner (which was heart-wrenching). And I've seen first-hand that they seem to do just fine in other parts of the world, and are particularly fun-loving (as hinted at in the OP's post).
My instinct says, "just leave 'em alone for a few generations, they'll figure it out". And that's what we tried, but then the Taliban set up a safe-haven for Al-Queda and we got 9-11. And then we got an 11-year-long war, the longest (and probably the most expensive) in US history.
Perhaps, though, that remains the best option. Just somehow keep an eye on money and arms that flow into the nation, and strike any training camps we detect. E.g. exactly what it seems like Israel does with the West Bank and Gaza. Of course that sucks, but our options are few.
> And that's what we tried, but then the Taliban set up a safe-haven for Al-Queda and we got 9-11.
There are far easier ways of preventing another 9-11. For example, why don't we start by enforcing intelligence sharing between the various TLAs? After all, that's why we couldn't stop 9-11.
There's a HUGE difference between Israel's position and our's. Israel is right up against the border of the West Bank and Gaza. We're on the other side of the world.
>For example, why don't we start by enforcing intelligence sharing between the various TLAs? After all, that's why we couldn't stop 9-11.
Agreed. While this is the first and most important step, attacks will get through, and we need a credible response.
>There's a HUGE difference between Israel's position and our's.
Yes, of course there are differences. But there are similarities too. The key similarity is that neither the Palestinians nor the Afghans have a strong central government that can keep it's promises to the outside world. The core pattern in Israel's interactions with Palestine has been: Palestinian authority (used to be Arafat, now Hamas) promises not to attack; some random Palestinian faction decides to launch rockets into Israel; Israel says to the world, "See?" and then viciously counter-attacks. The Israelis argue that if Palestine can't control it's people, then it gives up the right to sovereignty. And this, essentially, was Bush's justification to invade Afghanistan. He knew the Taliban wasn't directly responsible, Al Queda was. We attacked anyway.
P.S. I have very mixed feelings about Israel, so I'm not justifying anything, just describing the situation the way I see it.
Bush's justification of the invasion of Afghanistan was completely flawed. Whereas the Israelis have a geographically tethered foe, Al Qaeda can move its operations to another country (which they did by going to Pakistan). In reality, the primary country from which the 9/11 hijackers originated was Saudi Arabia - a country whose royal family includes a prince that Dubya considers a brother.
The right thing to do would have been to send special forces into Afghanistan to assassinate the Al Qaeda members responsible for 9/11, not get into a decade+ long war.
Afghanistan has been a perpetual warzone for decades now and every attempt after each war to rebuild important civil instituions (courts, taxes, police) has been poorly done. In the brief period where there were institutions and stability things were better. If from the article, “During the time of the Taliban we did not have such encounters. Everyone kept to his lane.”.
I'm trying to think of what the good people of Afghanistan can do to create good regions of Afghanistan. It seems clear that good people need to band together, get some serious firepower, and create a safe haven where the One Rule (no destruction) is strictly enforced.
It's a fascinating problem because it's almost like dealing with a zombie apocalypse. Too bad that it's real.
> It seems clear that good people need to band together, get some serious firepower, and create a safe haven where the One Rule (no destruction) is strictly enforced.
This almost exactly describes what the Taliban did. Except in their moral system, the One Rule is different than in your moral system.
>This almost exactly describes what the Taliban did. Except in their moral system, the One Rule is different than in your moral system.
Read The Kite Runner for a gripping insight into what the Taliban was. There was no rule, only naked force in the name of religious fundamentalism. Enforcement was (and is) arbitrary and brutal.
The One Rule is totally, completely compatible with Islam. However, it is incompatible with any any belief, religious or otherwise that values anything above non-destruction. The big problem in the Muslim world is, in my view, that they are confused on this point. Enforcing a prohibition of the expression of blasphemy instead of enforcing a prohibition of violence and destruction is a critical mistake, and the entire nation pays the price in perpetuity.
If the universe has anything approaching a built-in moral standard, it's this, and it's implied strongly by the second law of thermodynamics. It's far easier to destroy than to create, and so any culture that doesn't give creation asymmetrical importance is going to relegate it's followers to a life of squalor and violence.
I think I get your point, but you need to re-phrase the zombie apocalypse part.
Afghanistan is a country that has been fractured by civil war or the fight against invaders for all of its living memory and is struggling to find unity.
A zombie apocalypse on the other hand is a fictional event in which a horde of brainless demons tries to kill all humans.
I'm sorry that I've offended your sensibilities, but there is a strong parallel with the chaos in Afghanistan (or Somalia for that matter) and a zombie apocalypse. Two parallels in particular stick out: there is no strong central authority, and there is the constant threat of violence. For zombies, the violence is directed toward "eating brains" or something equally ridiculous, for Afghans the violence vector is directed toward "anyone who disagrees with me or who I or my tribe doesn't like", and seems particularly informed by Islamism and hatred of the West.
Further, the problem of 'infection' is very similar. Even if you create a "safe zone" it's not necessarily safe. Consider the recent rash of killings when our Afghan "allies" have turned on US servicemen, killing them in cold blood in so-called "Green on Blue" attacks. (About 100 servicemen have been murdered in this way in the last 3 years).
If you read the article carefully, he talks of an opposition who "offered themselves as alternate protectors and arbiters of justice" and set up a road block, all this to push the mob to execute the insurgents who attacked a bank. This is exactly what you are proposing, mob rule to attack any "destroyers".
I struggle to see how the solution to violence is more violence.
First, I think you misread the piece. That anecdote was clearly facetious. The roadblock was an empty show of force and was nothing more than more violence. There was no way that was an effective response. It was just a bad excuse for the gang to extort money.
Second, my proposal cannot be imposed from the outside. It would take a group of like-minded individuals to band together and protect a geographical region, imposing this rule on all within it. It's a safe harbor where peace is enforced with violence. Pockets of peace could arise, and then connect, and grow. If they are peaceful enough, and productive enough, their ability to sustain and fight wars will improve, naturally turning them into more powerful foes.
This, essentially, is what happened in the West. And I think that's what could happen in Afghanistan.
It is within human nature to destroy. In this case a lot of it manifests itself under an umbrella of a certain brand of Islam. I think more should be done from within Islam to combat this ideology with a more tolerant message. When it comes from within it is more likely to be heard. Then again, no one kills more Muslims than other Muslims.
The weird thing for me is that I'm an atheist, almost sometimes a militant atheist, and yet by far the only people I met doing decent work in Afghanistan were:
1) Afghan expats (generally moderately religious), like doctors from London who had moved back.
2) Christian missionaries, specifically those who had remained in Afghanistan from ~1979-2001 and beyond. To a limited extent, some (religious based) US charities as well.
Totally absent were USG organizations like DOD, USAID; the UN; various NGOs; ISAF; etc. The UN water pumps were helpful, but those I think mainly pre-dated the 2001 conflict, and in no way approach making up for the harm caused by the UNODC drug control policies.
SSF, Fab Lab, the guest house, Tim, etc. all did some worthwhile stuff, but were really an exception. In general, the only people doing anything helpful were locals and religious people.
This was slightly less true in Iraq; there were some limited positive works done by NGOs and by specific military commanders (using their under-$100k local budgets), and some worthwhile projects from CA.
And it raises a lot of questions. Is Afghanistan totally hopeless? Is there something wrong with the Afghans? Is it Islam? The American occupation? Something in the water? Why would anyone choose to live in such conditions, and choose to perpetuate the institutions, behaviors, and beliefs that create such an environment? What indeed is at the root of this misery?
I would argue that the key change they need is for the people to be overwhelmingly disapproving of destruction.
If you intentionally destroy someone or something, the mob should make sure your ass is grass. You can say what you want, hang out with whoever you want - but as soon as you destroy, you're toast.
Now, ideally you let the mob pitch in to hire someone to enforce this one rule, and perhaps even add some overhead to ensure that they enforce it more-or-less fairly. And so you have taxes, police, and courts. (And if you want to be more subtle about what constitutes destruction, you can make laws, but that's optional).
Afghan society must start severely punishing destructive people. Leave punishing blasphemy to Allah. Since creation is so much slower and more difficult than destruction, the net effect will be a continually improving infrastructure and society.
EDIT: Also, I would like to put up posters denouncing denouncers and see if maybe that would help.